Research: Men stay sexually active longer than women

Nothing, not even old age, comes between a man and his sex life. Some 67% of men between the ages of 65 and 74 and more than one-third of men between 75 and 85 say they’ve been sexually active in the past year, according to an article in the British Medical Journal that was reported.

Women, on the other hand, don’t stay as frisky as they age. Just 40% of women ages 65 to 74 said they’d had sex in the past year, and only 17% of women from 75 to 85 reported having sex in that time period.

Some of the data in the new research, collected in 1995 and 1996, noted that 62% of guys 65 to 74 had sex in the previous six months but only 36% of women in that age group did.

Viagra is certainly responsible for some of men’s staying power. But the disparity in interest in sex between the sexes can’t be all due to Viagra, which wasn’t introduced until 1998.

“For men, their sexuality is not complicated,” said Mary Jo Rapini, LPC, an intimacy/sex psychotherapist. “If they have a medication like Viagra they get an erection and their thoughts are glued to that. But for women, sex is much more emotional and much more tied in with how they feel about their bodies.”

Healthier people generally tend to be more sexually active, according to a Time.com report. But women tend to focus negative attention on certain body parts that they don’t like, such as thighs and tummies, Rapini says.

 “It may not be menopause that leads to a decrease in libido but how women view themselves,” she explained. “Our society is so inundated with the focus on youth and being pretty. Women aren’t comfortable with their bodies.”

The authors of the new paper, Dr. Stacy Tessler Lindau and researcher Natalia Gavrilova of the University of Chicago, have devised what they call a “sexually active life expectancy.” At age 30, a woman has a SALE of 31 more years.

Lindau, the paper’s lead author, cautioned against drawing conclusions about the part of the study that showed that older women tend to enjoy sex less than older men. “It may be that women are more likely to have sex for reasons other than fulfilling pleasure – or that they are more interested in giving a partner satisfaction,” she said. “Maybe they lack the agency, or maybe they feel marital duty, but our paper doesn’t provide an explanation.”

Still, as Time.com pointed out: the silver lining for older women who aren’t enjoying sex is that men tend to die younger than women.


/NY Daily News/